Five yearsBritain seeks ban on glass pint-glasses to prevent bar-brawl injuries: The British Home Office is looking for proposals to make it harder to attack people with pint-glasses, including a mandate that all pint sleeves be made from plastic, or coated with shatter-resistant plastic. Because, you know, most bar-brawlers are fundamentally upset at the pint, not the people around them, and if they can't smash a pint sleeve, they will contain their anger and not use a chair, bottle, or imposing scarred forehead.

Ten yearsEFF kicks Diebold's ass: Diebold, the slimeballs whose faulty voting machines threaten the basis of US democracy, tried to silence its critics, a group of activists who were publishing leaked memos detailing the company's malfeasance, by falsely claiming that they were violating Diebold's copyright.

One yearSoviet plane-spotting head-gear: Drakegoodman scanned this 1917-ish photo of Soviet planespotters in exotic headgear; according to a commenter, the binox are focused at infinity "so that when you found the source of the sound by turning your head, you could see the aircraft creating that sound."

Ten yearsInternet bubble's blessings: The aspect of the Internet Bubble that the press seemed most taken with was the youth of some of the startup founders. This too is a trend that will last. There is a huge standard deviation among 26 year olds. Some are fit only for entry level jobs, but others are ready to rule the world if they can find someone to handle the paperwork for them.

One yearBetter way to organize kids' clothing departments: Ever since our daughter's birth, my wife Alice and I have found ourselves shopping the "boys" section of the department stores for things like pyjamas and tees and rubber boots, this being the only way to get stuff that isn't pink, covered in glitter, hypersexualized (you should see some of the nighties they make for three year old girls!) and generally lame.

Five yearsLondon cops finally apologise for mugging geek -- four years later: In 2005, Boing Boing reported on the arrest of a London geek for the 'crime' of carrying a 'bulky' backpack (e.g., a laptop bag), wearing an 'unseasonably warm' coat (it was one of the coldest July days on record), and 'avoiding the police' (he was looking at an SMS on his phone when he went through the turnstiles and so didn't make eye-contact with the officers there).

Five years3D movies are doomed to gimmickhood: "Why economics condemns 3D to be no more than a blockbuster gimmick," discusses the difficulty of making truly 3D movies (that is, movies that lose something crucial in 2D) in a world where movies need to find a home on 2D small-screens in order to recoup.

Ten yearsEarthlink posts P2P app, manifesto: Earthlink has released a new file-sharing tool based on SIP, the protocol underlying Voice Over IP and other systems for peer-to-peer connectivity. What's coolest about this is the manifesto they posted along with it.

One yearNetflix uses piracy stats to choose its programming: Senior executives from Netflix have explained their method for choosing which programs to license for the service: they buy the rights to the most-pirated shows in each territory, because that's where the demand is.

One yearAfter the Meltdown: tracking the fortunes reaped by the bankers who tanked the economy: Documents the fate of the regulators, executives, and firms that were most directly responsible for the subprime meltdown, and demonstrates that the top bankers for firms like Lehman got unbelievably rich due to their failures, and are still in business with lucrative consulting firms (for example, Lehman CEO Richard Fuld walked away with several hundred million in cash and now has homes in three states and a personal consulting outfit).

One yearTeen exorcists from Arizona take on the UK and Harry Potter: Brynne Larson and Tess and Savannah Scherkenback, teenage girls from Arizona who happen to be exorcists just like Brynne's dad, visit the UK! I bet they were a huge hit there. After all, Harry Potter author JK Rowling is British and, as Tess Scherkenback says, "The spells and things that you're reading in the Harry Potter books, those aren't just something that are made up, those are actual spells. Those are things that came from witchcraft books."

Five yearsPhiladelphia Free Library System is shutting down: The Philadelphia Free Library system is broke, and they're shutting it down, including cancelling "all branch and regional library programs, programs for children and teens, after school programs, computer classes, and programs for adults" and "all children programs, programs to support small businesses and job seekers, computer classes and after school programs" and "all library visits to schools, day care centers, senior centers and other community centers" and "all community meetings" and "all GED, ABE and ESL program."

One yearNo robot will ever... Today's XKCD strip, Reassuring, wittily illustrates Kevin Kelly's Seven Stages of Robot Replacement, which start with "1. A robot/computer cannot possibly do the tasks I do" and heads toward "5. OK, it can have my old boring job, because it’s obvious that was not a job that humans were meant to do."

Five yearsPoe archive from UT Austin goes online: UT Austin's Ransom Center has digitized their Edgar Allan Poe collection, and it's pretty cool. I especially like the copies of his books, with his notes in them

One yearInternet of Things Bill of Rights: We believe Internet of Things devices should all come with a well established expectation of what they will and will not do with consumer's data.

Five yearsFurniture slider prosthetic legs for turtle: Lucky is a box turtle in Petaluma, California who lost his front legs in what was believed to be an attack by a raccoon. Now he's back in the game with furniture sliders taped to his belly.

One yearFirsthand account of NSA sabotage of Internet security standards: On the Cryptography mailing list, John Gilmore (co-founder of pioneering ISP The Little Garden and the Electronic Frontier Foundation; early Sun employee; cypherpunk; significant contributor to GNU/Linux and its crypto suite; and all-round Internet superhero) describes his interactions with the NSA and several obvious NSA stooges on the IPSEC standardization working groups at the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Five yearsSteampunk rugged corset: Steampunk maker Nifer Fahrion worked with Robynne Winchester of Tulgey Wood Designs to whip up this rugged, construction grade corset to wear at Burning Man with the Man KCrew.

One yearThis is the Space Age: Annalee Newitz's Stop pretending we aren't living in the Space Age is a magnificent rant on the incredibly achievements of modern space programs, and a savage indictment of the lack of imagination underpinning complaints about the failure of humans to return to the moon in force.

Five yearsSteel velcro that supports 35 tons/square meter: Metaklett is a steel velcro-like substance created by Josef Mair and teammates at Technical University of Munich. One square meter of it supports up to 35 tons at temperatures up to 800 degrees Celsius.

One yearHeinlein's bed up for auction: Want to sleep in Robert A Heinlein's bed? The Heinlein Society was unable to find a museum to take this artifact from his home so they are now selling it on eBay.

Five yearsNormalcy is the future: She poured a coffee, then touched the breakfast table. "Where are my shoes?" "Your sister borrowed them." "Again? Where is Susan?" "She's downtown now." "Susan! Why did you swipe my favorite shoes again?" "Look at this dress." "Oooh, that dress is darling." "It would look even better on you." "You're right. Get it for me. You can't have it." "Trade you for these shoes." "Let me check that with Henry. Yeah, okay." Karen had another sip of fair-trade coffee. It tasted weird, but it was still hot.

Ten years: We recently moved to a semi-rural area in Los Angeles. Our mailbox is mounted on a metal pole, probably about an inch-and-a-half in diameter. The previous occupants had piled bricks around the pole, chimney-style, to keep drivers from knocking the mailbox over -- or at least punish them by giving their car a bigger dent if they hit it.

One year1.2kg Mega Pizza Burger hits Kyoto: A 400g patty, onion, pickles, and meat sauce, etc. are sandwiched between two 27cm diameter cheesy pizza crusts as buns. It's 2,580 yen and will be sold only for 3 months.

Five yearsDamien Hirst installation owner charges teen art-rival with theft of £500,000 for removing box of pencils from installation: A teenaged artist who was forced to stop selling his collages when Damien Hirst sent threats to his gallery (the collages incorporated ironic images of Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull sculpture) is now facing a possible jail sentence because he took a box of pencils from a Hirst installation as a prank and offered to return them only if Hirst would let him go back to displaying and selling his art. Hirst claims the box of pencils -- Faber Castell Mongol 482s from 1990 -- is worth GBP500,000, making this one of the gravest modern art thefts in British history.

Five yearsCanadian Copyright Consultation shows Canadians overwhelmingly support moderate, fair copyright: The Canadian government's copyright consultation has received over 4,000 submissions from Canadians (it's not too late to send yours!). Of these, the overwhelming majority are in favour of more liberal copyright, against extending the term of copyright, against stiffer penalties for infringement (only three submissions advocated this) and against US-DMCA-style rules protecting DRM.

Five yearsNeil Gaiman's library: Naturally we'd assumed that someone whose work is filled with references ranging from literary to mythological would have a fairly extensive library but even so, we were a bit unprepared for the scope of what he sent us.